Ordinarily Antrim would have laughed, as he was wont to laugh at her extravagances. As it was, he sulked and was silent while they were drifting with the slow-moving human glacier out through the vestibule and during the long street-car ride over to the Highlands. Since early morning he had been fighting a desperate battle with the Apollyon who disputes the way with that man who is foolish enough to set the day and hour in which a question of moment is to be decided. No sooner had he written it down that Isabel should that evening be brought to hear reason, than an imp of disorder came and sat at his elbow, and after this the business of his office went awry and the day became a lengthened misery. He had quarrelled with his stenographer, found fault with the operator, and made life burdensome for the office boy. Last, and worst of all, just before the day’s end he had fallen into a wrangle over the wires with the division train despatcher at Lone Pine Junction, the upshot of which was to bring the man’s resignation, garnished with a few terse “wire” oaths, clicking back through the sounder in the superintendent’s office. So much for the day’s tribulations. But since he had not taken the trouble to tell her, Isabel knew naught of these things. Hence it was not until they had left the car and were nearing the Hollywood gate that she began to wonder if his silence were altogether of abstraction. “You are in a sweet temper to-night, aren’t you, Harry?” she said, merely by way of arousing him to a sense of the social part of his duty. Antrim helped her across the bank-full irrigation ditch at the curb and answered not a word. “I suppose you are just aching to take it out on somebody,” she went on. “If that is the case, you may begin on me. I’m young and strong, and not too thin-skinned.” Still Antrim held his peace, fearing to open his mouth lest a worse thing should come of it. “Why don’t you say something? You needn’t go into your shell like a disappointed turtle just because I wouldn’t let you spoil my negative of the opera before I could get it developed.” Still no reply. “What is the matter with you, Harry, dear? Have you lost your tongue?” “No; I’ve been waiting till you saw fit to come down out of the clouds; that’s all.” “Well, I have arrived. And I am ready to forgive you for being so sulky. My, oh!” They had reached the gate, and Antrim tried to open it. The latch stuck, and straightway the gate flew across the sidewalk bereft of its hinges. Isabel laughed joyously, and the small explosion served to clear the moral atmosphere, as other wooden profanities are said to. “Good as a play, isn’t it?” growled the young man, and he sought to re-establish the wrecked gate. “Ever so much better,” was the quick retort. “It was positively the most human thing I ever saw you do. You are always so self-contained and precise that you put a quick-tempered mortal like me to shame.” “Did you ever do anything as senseless as this?”